Hyperbole and a Half


Book Description

#1 New York Times Bestseller “Funny and smart as hell” (Bill Gates), Allie Brosh’s Hyperbole and a Half showcases her unique voice, leaping wit, and her ability to capture complex emotions with deceptively simple illustrations. FROM THE PUBLISHER: Every time Allie Brosh posts something new on her hugely popular blog Hyperbole and a Half the internet rejoices. This full-color, beautifully illustrated edition features more than fifty percent new content, with ten never-before-seen essays and one wholly revised and expanded piece as well as classics from the website like, “The God of Cake,” “Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving,” and her astonishing, “Adventures in Depression,” and “Depression Part Two,” which have been hailed as some of the most insightful meditations on the disease ever written. Brosh’s debut marks the launch of a major new American humorist who will surely make even the biggest scrooge or snob laugh. We dare you not to. FROM THE AUTHOR: This is a book I wrote. Because I wrote it, I had to figure out what to put on the back cover to explain what it is. I tried to write a long, third-person summary that would imply how great the book is and also sound vaguely authoritative—like maybe someone who isn’t me wrote it—but I soon discovered that I’m not sneaky enough to pull it off convincingly. So I decided to just make a list of things that are in the book: Pictures Words Stories about things that happened to me Stories about things that happened to other people because of me Eight billion dollars* Stories about dogs The secret to eternal happiness* *These are lies. Perhaps I have underestimated my sneakiness!




Half in Shadow


Book Description

Nellie Y. McKay (1930–2006) was a pivotal figure in contemporary American letters. The author of several books, McKay is best known for coediting the canon-making with Henry Louis Gates Jr., which helped secure a place for the scholarly study of Black writing that had been ignored by white academia. However, there is more to McKay's life and legacy than her literary scholarship. After her passing, new details about McKay's life emerged, surprising everyone who knew her. Why did McKay choose to hide so many details of her past? Shanna Greene Benjamin examines McKay's path through the professoriate to learn about the strategies, sacrifices, and successes of contemporary Black women in the American academy. Benjamin shows that McKay's secrecy was a necessary tactic that a Black, working-class woman had to employ to succeed in the white-dominated space of the American English department. Using extensive archives and personal correspondence, Benjamin brings together McKay’s private life and public work to expand how we think about Black literary history and the place of Black women in American culture.




The Power of Half


Book Description

A true story of making a difference: “What does your family stand for? Read this book—it will change your life” (Daniel H. Pink). It all started when fourteen-year-old Hannah Salwen had a “eureka” moment. Seeing a homeless man in her neighborhood at the same moment when a glistening Mercedes coupe pulled up, she said “You know, Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal.” Until that day, the Salwens had been caught up like so many of us in the classic American dream—providing a good life for their children, accumulating more and more stuff, doing their part but not really feeling it. So when Hannah was stopped in her tracks by this glaring disparity, her parents knew they had to do something. As a family, they made the extraordinary decision to sell their Atlanta mansion, downsize to a house half its size, and give half of the sale price to a worthy charity. What began as an outlandish scheme became a remarkable journey that transported them across the globe and well out of their comfort zone. In the end they learned that they had the power to change a little corner of the world—and found that it changed them, too. “You feel lighter reading this book, as if the heavy weight of house and car and appliances, the need to collect these things to feel safe as a family, are lifted and replaced by something that makes much more sense.” —Los Angeles Times




Halftime


Book Description

Bob Buford's Halftime shows how men can make their middle years a time of transformation toward a more satisfying -- and significant -- life.




In the Half Room


Book Description

From the Caldecott Honor–winning creator of Home and Du Iz Tak? comes a striking tale of a wholly extraordinary room where everything is a half. The light of the half moon Shines down on the half room . . . The half room is full of half things. A half chair, a half cat, even half shoes—all just as nice as whole things. When half a knock comes on half a door, who in the world could it be? With inventive flair, Caldecott Honor winner Carson Ellis explores halves and wholes in an ingenious and thought-provoking picture book. Ink and gouache illustrations featuring wry detail and velvety textures conjure a dreamlike mood while leaving space for imagining. A celebration of the surreal and the serendipitous and the beauty of the two together, this brilliant picture book will have readers seeing halves with whole new eyes.




My Otter Half


Book Description

Homeward Bound meets Finding Nemo in this heartfelt story about a brave sea otter and a rambunctious puppy who team up to find their way home. Oliver is a sea otter determined to prove that he’s not a momma otter’s boy. In an effort to show his bravery, he swims into Puget Sound where all the ships and humans are. That’s when disaster strikes: An oil spill threatens the local wildlife -- and it traps Oliver in the harbor! Franklin, an excitable dachshund puppy, is also lost. He's been separated from his owner, Lucy, and he has no idea how to get back to her. Now Oliver and Franklin must journey through the Pacific Northwest wilderness in search of their families. Along the way, they’ll discover exciting adventures and meet new friends—but will they be able to find their way home?




Half and Half


Book Description

FIONA CHENG IS half and half: Her father is Chinese and her mother is Scottish. Fiona looks more like her father than her mother, so people always expect her to be more interested in her Chinese half than her Scottish half. Lately even Fiona’s confused about who she really is. “A realistic, gentle and funny tale.”—Detroit News & Free Press “Readers will identify with Fiona’s struggle to fit in.”—Publishers Weekly




The Mothers


Book Description

It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken beauty. Mourning her mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. It's not serious-- until the pregnancy. As years move by, Nadia, Luke, and her friend Aubrey are living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently?




The Half Book


Book Description

He got the job. He got the girl. He got the diagnosis. Son of a... Dan Duffy was twenty-nine when he heard the worst three words imaginable: "you have cancer." Testicular. Stage three. His life became equal parts fear and anger, with a dash of stupidity for flavor. From systematically alienating everyone around him to embracing psychological and physical acts of acute masochism and loathing, cancer became the least of his worries. It was at his lowest point where Dan found salvation in common sense, and redemption in his ultimate purpose to give people the truth, and ultimately hope, while facing this disease. Dan has often said, "Cancer is going to hit you like a truck. Period. You can either brace for impact, or get run over." Dan's story will make you laugh, make you think, and affirm that no one is alone in this fight.




Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life


Book Description

"An audacious and concrete proposal…Half-Earth completes the 86-year-old Wilson’s valedictory trilogy on the human animal and our place on the planet." —Jedediah Purdy, New Republic In his most urgent book to date, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and world-renowned biologist Edward O. Wilson states that in order to stave off the mass extinction of species, including our own, we must move swiftly to preserve the biodiversity of our planet. In this "visionary blueprint for saving the planet" (Stephen Greenblatt), Half-Earth argues that the situation facing us is too large to be solved piecemeal and proposes a solution commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: dedicate fully half the surface of the Earth to nature. Identifying actual regions of the planet that can still be reclaimed—such as the California redwood forest, the Amazon River basin, and grasslands of the Serengeti, among others—Wilson puts aside the prevailing pessimism of our times and "speaks with a humane eloquence which calls to us all" (Oliver Sacks).